Cigarettes and Dark Arts
by LucyGoLightly
Summary: Tuesday Holloway, Hogwarts' new student from France is weird. She spends all day smoking in the bathroom and her sarcastic ways and destructive personality make it hard to get through to her. But the pale-faced witch's life takes a dramatic turn when new powers, shady ones, are rising from the inner rows of the students to take over the regiment...
1. Summary

This year at Hogwarts weird things have been going on. Everything's melted into a chaos of secret-mongering, whispers, late night meet up's and cigarettes and something too dark to define. It is said that new powers, shady ones, are rising from the inner rows of the students to take over the regiment and there is this strange rumour about some secret circle…

To top it all, Finn Cassady Ashville is back at school, not only to turn countless young witches' head's (and maybe some throats too…) with his unearthly good looks and dangerously sharp tongue, but also to complete something different…

And when Tuesday Holloway, Hogwarts' new student from France, arrives, the school is put completely out of balance. The young girl spends all day smoking in the bathroom, ignoring every rule and her sarcastic ways and destructive personality make it hard to get through to her, always causing trouble. She sure is the opposite of her twin sister, Ginger Holloway, Gryffindor's very own Miss Perfect.

Only one thing is sure, this year Hogwarts will experience some drama of a very different kind. Be ready for a time full of chaos, friendship, rivalry, hate, love and lot's of Dark Arts…


	2. Chapter 1

**Cigarettes, always cigarettes**

After the boy across from her had sneezed frighteningly loud for the third and hopefully last time, Coral Brighton opened her eyes. The first rays of blue-ish evening light climbed through the glass without knocking. She pretended like she was still sleeping with the hope they would go away. They didn't.

Her fingers lightly ran across the freezing surface of the train's windows in circles, tracing the pattern the dirt had created over the years. Her reflection was no surprise. Coral was as always pale as chalk and her hair, before held up in a bun, was now falling onto her back in its usual long white blonde way.

The whole ride the bloodless new arrival had sat there, numbly facing the ground and not moving an inch, constantly torn between killing herself or everyone around her. She'd always been a girl with quite a temper. Maybe that was the reason she was transferred from Beauxbatons to Hogwarts. " _As a student of honour…" As if!,_ she smirked.

God she really couldn't believe this was actually happening. Exiled to England. Things like that only happened in movies!

"Oh, you're alive?!" the familiar silvery-soft voice beside her appeared. Coral turned her head to find the two big wide chocolate brown eyes that belonged to her sister uncomfortably close to her face. _Unfortunately!,_ she thought.

"Morning." Coral deadpanned as she stared right past Ginger (didn't want to see her face) at another student who looked just like a kid she sometimes saw on the bus. She didn't bother tacking the _good_ in front of the morning. It was hard for her to lie without having her coffee first.

She rubbed her eyes, smoky blue and unstady, in contrast to her sister's ones. Her head was too heavy to carry, so she kept it down.  
"Hey, will you be fine already?" Ginger moaned in annoyance. "Aren't you excited?"

"Actually no…" the white-haired witch answered in an indifferent voice and crawled deeper into her favourite jeans jacket.

She looked at the watch around her ankle and couldn't decide if she felt like it was late or early because her mind was too weary to find any point of reference. She swallowed what was left in the coke bottle in front of her.

"Well you will be soon… Think of all these delicious guys waiting! I swear, you'll get used to Hogwarts soon. Just promise me you'll behave…" Ginger giggled.

Coral hissed. That was just typical for her beautiful, seemingly ever so happy twin sister with fire hair. Needless to say that she and her warmhearted friendly ways had been sorted into Gryffindor. Little did all those applauding students know that the bittersweet girl had a twin sister maybe a little less "good-natured"...

"Man, it really does suck that you didn't get into Gryffindor." Ginger looked at her sister with pity all over her face. Not that Coral would have noticed, she was still looking at the student in the row across, who was using her coat as a blanket even though she was offered a proper one and spread it half across the aisle.

The pale witch fished a lipstick out of her battered backpack that accompanied her wherever she went. While fiddling around with a little thread that had loosened from her seat, she applied the dark red colour onto her lips mirror-less. Only one of the things she was good at. Pissing off the headmistress at Beauxbatons would be another.

"But then again you're _so_ much more Slytherin…" Ginger shook her head and tucked her long silky smooth hair behind her ear. She had melted brown sugar for her eyes, the kind that kept you staring when you looked at them and the way her flaming strands fell onto her Hogwarts cloak it was no wonder the boys were queuing up to date her.

Coral started drawing shapes with the tips of her fingers into the seat; rivers and forests, to distract herself from doing anything stupid. Step by step all the students slowly came back to life and the train was filled with the dull background noise of wizards quietly talking. The rain smudged the orbs of color against the windows as they battled forward against the weather. Of course it was raining, of course…

By the time they arrived and got out of the train, the rain made it hard to look across the street and strangely the scents of crackers and Cauldron Cakes were still mingling in the soaked air. Coral's sister lowered her sight so her mascara wouldn't smudge onto her cheeks as they walked along Hogsmeade Station, a miserably small place that looked so very much like the grey-ish image of England that had swirled around in Coral's head. She believed the only reason railway stations were so damn awful was to make the prospect of riding in a metal cage for several hours more appealing.

"The weather is absolute shit here, you know…" the pale-faced cursed as she tried to put on a cigarette, soaking wet in the split of a second.

"Put that away!" Ginger flicked the cigarette onto the tracks. "You don't want to get caught with those here!"

"Oh please…" Coral raised an eyebrow.

Her sister pointed at Coral's old backpack with an unabashed disgusted expression on her face. "Give me your cigarettes!" she demanded.

"Yeah, right…" the white haired witch smiled coldly and then turned round, the clattering of her skinny knees in the cold wind making it hard for her to look indifferent.

"It would have been a good idea to put on some _tights_ , sis…" Ginger laid one arm around the freezing witch's shoulders on the way to the draughty Hogwarts carriages.

"It would have been a good idea to come up with a school uniform that _doesn't_ automatically guarantee a cold…" Coral whispered in return and enveloped in another layer of knit-cardigans. She looked like she always did, strange and provocative and lots of people constantly flipped about the way she didn't seem to care about anything.

"You can really be a pain in the ass, you know?" Ginger spat. "I'm just trying to be as nice as I can and frankly, you're giving me a really hard time."

"Oh don't do me no favours…" the white-haired witch replied. "Feel free to act as you want, I really don't need anyone faking to like me…"

"Good."

"Great…"

The two sisters stared at each other in silence. This was just exactly the way Coral had imagined it to be coming to Hogwarts. Awkward and uncomfortable. She didn't know what the hell everyone's problem was. A school like Beauxbatons should be able to handle some rebellious teens and not just ship them to England as soon as problems accrued! Actually, she did know what the problem was. The answer swirled in the twenty-five packages of cigarettes in her suitcase, the one cigarette in her left hand and the lighter in her right one. She hated rules and constrictions.

The pale witch bit her tongue as she wasn't able to put on any of her soaking wet Marlboro's, a problem that was new to her. She growled. There was something so magnificent and graceful about hitting a new low in a new place. Some stupid song was playing on her sister's iPod so loud that Coral was able to hear it and she noticed how inexpressive and blank it was. She smirked — at her sister, herself, her sorry state, Hogwarts and the stupid song that just rounded the situation up in an ironically perfect way.

The drone of the hundreds of voices in the Great Hall drowned the sound of the pale witch's ankle boots on the cold stone floor. The bewitched ceiling looked like the sky outside, dark and stirringly grey and just so very English. Coral felt like screaming. She hated rain, she hated wet clothes, she hated the fact that she was standing in the middle of a crowded hall that suddenly grew utterly silent, the only sound being the whispers of the students filling the room like smoke silently dragging out.

Her sister skipped over to a bouquet of girls with pastel headbands, huddled in their red-and-yellow embellished coats. They were three, stuck together as if attached at the hip, in a way that Coral found ridiculous and intimidating at the same time. _So there's a cool girl's club here too…,_ she thought. _How incredibly annoying._ They looked like those kind of girls that bogusly assigned themselves unique personas (one was "the smart one," the other "the crazy one") when in reality they were basically interchangeable in every way. But they reminded the pale witch of the kind of friendship she never had.

Coral felt a million eyes on her back as she sat down alone at the long wooden Slytherin table and half-heartedly scooped some food onto her plate. The words _new girl_ were pouring out into the damp hall's air like the glass pearls on her floor at home as she once ripped the dangling curtains in rage.

"Hello sunshine, killed anyone today?" a voice practically dripping of sarcasm approached the chalk-colored witch, who was hiding her face behind a layer of thick messy white waves because she was under the serious observation of a dozen nosy wizards.

She raised her head. A boy from across stared at the knife in her hand that violently tortured the fried egg in front of her. His mouth was curled in amusement.

"The day isn't over yet, is it?" Coral hissed back and stared him right in the eye, well aware of how good-looking he was, dark blonde hair smooth with this unnatural shine, like newly minted money and eyes unnaturally piercingly green. She felt her stomach doing funny things. The table went silent, a few more 14-year-old's eavesdropping on her conversation than the bloodless girl was confident with. Then he smiled.

"Julien Haynesworth." He reached his hand across the table. "Captain of the Quidditch team, Winner of the Defense against the Dark Arts Cup, the legend, the myth, the dream…"

For a moment Coral wasn't sure if he was joking or not but then he grinned, showing off a row of perfectly white teeth.

"Uh-hugh." she knitted her browns, staring at his hand that was waiting in vain to be shaken. Hogwarts guys. She should have known better.

"Autch…" Julien formed the word with his lips in silence as he pulled back his palm, still smirking and not seeming to be upset at all. He tilted his head to the right, and his crooked, left-sided grin grew even brighter, claiming possession over the amusement in his voice.

"May I ask for your name then?" he insisted in a broad British accent, pulling his sleeves over his wrists because it was freezing in the giant hall. How was it possible to invest in such a spectacular ceiling but completely forget about simple things like heating? _So_ English…

"You do realize you have to interact with your peers at some point, don't you? I mean, you can't avoid people for ever…" Julien remarked when Coral didn't make an effort to answer him.

"Just so you know, I'd be free to… _interact with_ whenever you want…" a boy a few seats away shouted and the table burst into laughter.

"Oh sweetie, in what world?" Coral smiled back bittersweet. The pale witch cleared her throat loudly and turned to face some staring second years who lowered their sights quickly, eyes wide in shock.

"Jeez, no need to be such a bitch…" Julien laughed as he lavishly buttered a toast from both sides.

"Excuse me?!"

"Oh don't take him too seriously, Mr. golden boy here just isn't used to rejection…" A tiny girl squeezed herself in the spot next to Julien and let her plate fall onto the table in such a loud way Coral didn't think was possible for a person of that delicate statue. She paused, pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, then added: "It really must be hard to have at least one girl who isn't gonna drop dead for you…" Her lashes were brushing against her glasses and her dark brown hair was in a short pixie cut that made her look witty and cute.

"Yeah thanks Poppy, love you too." Julien rolled his eyes at her, but his face lit up as she sucker-punched him in the side in a hilariously weak way.

"Always glad to help… And you are?" the girl turned to Coral, mouth filled with some sort of sandwich.

"Coral Brighton…"

"What a beautiful…"

"Don't even start." Coral interrupted Julien, who lifted his hand and formed a silent _never mind_.

"No way… You're the new girl! Ginger Brighton's twin sister!" Poppy ignored Julien and almost spat out her sandwich, coughing a few times and after a couple of _bless-you's_ by the house ghosts was able to gather herself.

"No shit Sherlock! They totes look the same… Like the face and all." Julien wildly gestured in front of the new witch's nose, which made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

"You did not just say totes?" Poppy looked at Julien in played shock.

"You did not just have sex with that Gryffindor guy yesterday…" he retorted smugly.

Poppy shrugged her shoulders in guilt. "'Round goes to you, asshole… By the way, I'm Poppy De Rege and Julien here most likely already gave you the whole "Captain of the Quidditch team" speech, right?"

"You bet…" Coral smirked.

"Just so you know, the Defense against the Dark Arts thing is a fat lie…" Poppy giggled. "He wasn't the actual winner… There were two…the other guy, Levis…"

"Yeah, yeah shut up Poppy…" Julien cursed. "By the way, where is Levis today anyways?"

"Probably killing some innocent first years… or screwing some equally innocent Ravenclaw babes, who knows?" Poppy faced the new witch, suddenly serious. "Just do me one favor, do not under any circumstances fall in love with Levis, understood?"

Coral stared at her without understanding. "Why would I do that?" she asked.

"You'll know…believe me…" Poppy whispered.

"Ok, I promise I won't."

"Yeah, and since she seems to be an emotionless robot, that shouldn't be too big of a problem…" Julien patted the pale witch's shoulder.

"Oh fuck you…" Coral laughed.

"And before I forget…" Poppy laid her arm around Julien "…welcome to Slytherin!"


	3. Chapter 2

**Rooftops are safe spots**

Watery moonlight slowly sank through the thick curtains in front of the window. The castle was dead silent, only the sounds of the ever way-changing stairs kept the young pale-faced witch from thinking time had frozen. And of course the shameless snoring of the girl she shared her room with, Jenny…

Hour for hour the bloodless new arrival laid on her bed, her skin still wet from showering and the little water drops that pearled off her body only left quickly drying streaks. She could feel how the sheets got more and more soaked. She didn't care. Sometimes staring up at the ceiling, straight into a sleepless night, felt more restful than spending eight hours in the basement of purgatory.

The room was small, the two unproportionally huge beds with green silk hangings barely fit in, and the walls were packed with bookshelves. Tuesday rolled on her stomach and scratched the loose wallpaper above the headboard of her bed. It had the color of dark lemons and fig seeds. An awkward combination she thought.

The sleep-hungry witch wrapped herself in a knit blanket hanging from her bedpost and sat up, hair wild as the depths of Hogwarts Lake. She was in a bad mood, as always, and felt especially cynical today. A bedspring creaked as Tuesday got up to dress herself, but even the way she pulled her uniform's black plaid skirt up too high, let the white blouse hang from her skinny body loosely and threw on the blazer above carelessly to piss of the teachers didn't lift her mood.

As the dim moonlight vanished into equally dim sunlight a disturbingly loud one of her own sleeping-noises woke Jenny up.

"Tuesday, you're up! Am I late?" Jenny shot up and looked at the already dressed witch with sleep-swollen eyes.

"No, but if…"

"You have absolutely no idea how afraid I am of this test today! I dreamt I was late and couldn't find the classroom which is ridiculous because I always…" Jenny completely ignored her new roommate, as she always did. She found herself way too important to be pushed over.

"What?" Tuesday asked wearily after a while because Jenny had once again lost the pale girl along the way of her confusing train of thoughts. Tuesday pulled her sheer black socks above her scratched knees and secured her watch around her ankle.

"Never mind." Jenny swirled around the room, hitting her curls-covered head on one of the silver lanterns that hung from the ceiling. She fought against the heavy door of her closet and an ocean of flower prints and ruffles poured out on the floor.

"So… is it true that you're Ginger Holloway's twin sister?" Jenny whispered scandalized while fantasizing about a world in which she could wear whatever she wanted to. But in the end they all had to wear their school uniforms so she grudgingly pulled over the familiar skirt.

"Uhm, yes…why?" Tuesday deadpanned.

"Don't get me wrong, you really kinda look alike, but… I don't know… you're still _so_ different. God, Ginger is, like, _insanely_ beautiful! I know this is weird, but do you think you could maybe introduce us or something? That necklace she wore was so killer…"

One would think that at a certain age this hierarchy of the pretty and popular girls would be over, making space for the actually relevant things in life. But nah, chill. Still the same suckish shit. Tuesday had never been one of those girls - the ones who knew about fashion, wore makeup and were a hit with dudes - nor would she ever be because the things she liked more than fashion magazines and makeup were talking about what she read last night in the newspaper, and old rock music, and art that she loved. This was not a turn-on.

"I would, but I know her as little as you do…" Tuesday fingered a crunched box of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one up, only to be strictly reminded by Jenny that smoking wasn't allowed here.

"This isn't France, for Christ's sake!" she hysterically squeaked.

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind…" Tuesday narrowed her eyes. Dumb stuck-up English twats. Why was she forced to live with this girl? WHY? Why would anyone do this to her?

At Breakfast the new witch was under the constant acoustic irradiation of Jenny's blabber. Tempted to flea this torture of mind she looked around. Where were Julien and Poppy? She hadn't seen them since yesterday evening…

This morning the hall bustled with energy, swirling energy, students moved with such pace they were a blur. Sporty Ravenclaw girls and their porridge left untouched, tables bursting with food, eyes looking for spaces in the ever-moving throng of bodies. Students speaking loudly about coursework and deadlines, their only worries were whether they would be sober enough to sit an exam, plates larger than themselves, dwarfing the first years that ran around. The sounds of voices and dishes merged into white noise, nothing was coherent but everything was still alone in its own meaning. A glimpse of a conversation here, guys shouting at each other as they talked about Quidditch, the laughter of geeks as they compared their experiences with the new astronomy teacher, everybody had their own story that morning. And right in the middle was that strange-looking mysterious figure that didn't seem to belong anywhere.

"Good morning students!" A tiny peer shaped woman in a brown suit raised her head behind the golden lectern in the center of the teachers' tables. She had one of those faces you could make out under a million of women. Her skin was like dried tobacco, wrinkled, hanging loosely to aching limbs that had probably once been slender like her hands. Tuesday had heard many stories about Hogwarts' new head mistress Madam Ladonna and how she was said to be distanced, weird, mysterious… the total opposite to her beloved forerunner McGonagall. "As you all know, each and everyone of you has been searched upon your arrival yesterday. And you have the right to know why. We are not beginning this new year as carefree as we had hoped. It has repeatedly come to my attention that our school's inventory has been flawed, several items purloined… items that must be kept under tight wraps at _all_ times. It is not yet to say whether these misdeeds are to blame on students, for we also have evidence of someone or something trespassing onto our school grounds…" Her a solid, unbroken silhouette cast against the window behind her, growing rich orange as she spoke. Students started to whisper.

"But keep calm…" Madam Ladonna said strictly, unfriendly; more as an order than a soothing. Her shadow shifted, like ink in water, and reformed with her standing sideways, making the contour of her belly visible. "… our excellent staff of teachers will guarantee for all of your safety."

One of the other Professors gave some proper start-of-term notices after Madam Ladonna had sat down in her chair that seemed too high for her stature but just wide enough for her hips. He informed the students that the forest within the grounds was forbidden and the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side was out of bounds to anyone who did not wish to die a painful death.

Tuesday didn't listen too carefully; she vaguely remembered what her sister had told her about the millions of rules at Hogwarts. Instead she had to think about the stories, the legends she had been told about former headmistress McGonagall and how her sudden disappearance had left mysteries unsolved across the whole country…

"I think you spilled your drink," a girl said, looking the sunken-eyed new witch over up and down, trying to classify her. Great. A huge coffee stain was sitting at the hem of Tuesday's shirt. She laid her head onto the table and moaned, pressing her wrists over her ears. The sound of forks and knives echoed in her ears even as she tried to shut everyone out. She didn't feel like going to class now. When did she ever? The clothes on her back felt heavy and each step she took made her want to lie down. Probably a thousand students asked her where she was going as she stood up. She didn't feel like answering.

Tuesday accidentally slammed her elbow against the edge of a stonewall outside as she laid down on one of Hogwarts' smaller building's rooftops, winced, and waited for the tingling to subside. Rooftops were a safe place, far away from all the people.

She tilted her head back, her cotton candy textured hair covering a window below; let it hang off the edge of the roof like a melting scoop of ice cream. The sky was cloudy and of a treacherous greenish-grey and the oxygen felt good in the weird girl's nose with her pale skin at war with the dark red color of her lipstick. It had been a shitty day, the kind that couldn't get better, so all she wanted to do was get home and sleep until the next day. But this was her home now. She hated her life.

"For Fuck's sake!" the light-haired witch screamed as she heard someone cough slightly and let her cigarette fall into the yard below. "What the…?"

She had lost stability, digging the heels of her shoes into the roof tiles, lying on the edge of the roof in a more awkward than casual position. She saw him then. Out of the corner of her eye while he was leaning against the wall, watching her with too much intent. The pale witch lifted her head. The guy made a few steps forward until he was right in front of her, running his fingers through his dark brown almost black hair, holding out his hand to pull her up.

Tuesday bit her tongue harder than she should have to keep herself from cussing – which caused her to cuss anyways – but she found herself too numb to move. When he shifted away the hair that was falling into his face, her heart reacted unexpectedly.

He was good-looking; too much to handle really. Tall and slim, wearing a grey V-neck sweater exposing his most perfect collar bones. He stared at the young girl in a way that made her toes tingle. Even with the faint violet circles under his eyes. Maybe they made him even prettier; mysterious. She couldn't tell at this point. All she knew was the color of his eyes, a deep piercing black. Like molasses, that oddly tasting sugarcane syrup, they stood in stark contrast to the paleness of his skin. Only when the young witch started to count the strands of his raven hair that were standing out in every direction of the perfectly careless mess on his head, she realized that her heart had picked up its pace to account for its missing beats.

"Everything alright _down there_ …" he smiled, voice thick with sarcasm, scratchy and hoarse from the cigarettes he had been serial killing.

It took a second for the young witch to understand; the boy's eyes travelling down her body to her legs that were facing him, slightly apart in order for the pale girl to keep herself from sliding off the building. Her skirt had rid too far up her thighs during the process of finding stability, probably most likely exposing her childish polka dotted underwear. She snapped her legs shut immediately without thinking, loosing balance and almost falling after her cigarette down into the schoolyard. A pair of hands, cold as ice, held onto her waist, pulling her back up.

"Where do you think you're going?" his craggy deep voice sounded like long nights and cheap alcohol. He had the audacity to maintain the cynicism in his voice, causing Tuesday to free herself quickly from his burning clutch.

"What the Fuck are you doing here?" she gasped, finally on her legs again. Her knees felt like chewed bubble gum. She convinced herself it was due to the almost-cropper down into the stone-covered campus.

"I could ask you the same thing. For all I know is that this…" he gestured around the roof "is usually my territory. So what are _you_ doing here?"

"Getting' a tan…" Tuesday hissed ironically, underlined by the glowing paleness of her skin in the cold breeze of wind that messed her hair up even more. She picked the hem of her skirt, trying to adjust it in a way that could be considered proper. The guy watched her with amusement. He was probably taller than her by two heads so he was able to look down on her; and he did in every way possible. Tuesday already hated him.

"Same here…" he grinned, white skin blinking the same way hers did. In one motion he laid down on the rooftop, arms and legs spread out in every direction. "Care to join?"

The new arrival hesitated. But then she remembered that it was rather easy to peak under her skirt in this position. She sat down clenching her knees.

"Don't you have class soon…" the rose haired said, feeling the need to fill up the space between the two of them with words.

"Yeah I do. But all the other students will enter the room in less than 4 minutes and utterly break my concentration and I cannot be a genius with idiots constantly invading my thoughts. So nah, I'll probably just stay here…" He shifted his weight from one elbow to the other, anoter strand of hair falling onto his forehead. "Do you ever feel that way? That you just think differently…"

The new arrival didn't answer, knowing this had been more of a rhetorical question than actual interest. She was good at reading people. Especially guys. And this one seemed way too self-absorbed to actually care what her answer was.

"You're Tuesday Holloway, right? Ginger's sister…" The guy looked at her closely.

"You know my sister?" The white-haired witch raised an eyebrow. He didn't look like someone who would hang with Ginger.

"You could call it that, yes…" He smirked, squashing a cigarette right next to her bare leg before putting on another. The pale witch rolled her eyes. Too much information.

"It's weird, a week ago I didn't even know she had a sister, let alone a twin…" He indicated innocently. "What did you do to make her deny that she has a sister?"

"Maybe you should be more concerned about why she hasn't told you yet rather than about

what I did and did not do…" Tuesday hissed.

The guy smirked. "Well we don't exactly… _talk_ much anyways…" He stood up and unbuttoned his blazer. _Great, Thanks for the picture!, Tuesday_ thought. She had no interest in her sister's love life and she was sure Ginger wouldn't be too happy about that either. The young girl could feel the tremors of each of the guy's movements from where she was sitting a few inches away, shifted her seat and sat a little straighter.

"You know what…" He suddenly said, eyes blinking with amusement as he caught her staring at the last cigarette left in the box in his hand. "…I'll race you for the last one."

The rose-haired witch wanted to stutter a confused _What?_ but he had already slipped back into the building through the open window. The tall shadow that he had cast upon the roof was gone, invisible, leaving the box of cigarettes at her feet.

It took Tuesday a moment to realize what she was doing, already in the action of sprinting after him over the rooftops of Hogwarts. She looked down at the crunched cigarette box in her hands. There it was, in thick black lettering, written on the side: **Finn**.


	4. Chapter 3

**Potions and slipping motions**

Wind stole into the corridors as Tuesday chased the mysterious boy, whirled under its ceiling, along the cobwebs clinging to the corners, through her hair that had grown long enough to cover half of her back. She was still a bit uncertain about finding her way through the hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts. Some wide, some rickety and some that led somewhere different on a Friday. One more reason to keep up with Finn, who's long legs proved a clear advantage.

Cast across the hallway floor that was quickly moving under the young witch's feet, the shadows of the trees outside had grown rounder, less jagged. Tuesday was running on two hours of sleep, had a headache, and the threat of her legs caving in under the weight of her pounding head hung over her like the possibility of an impending hangover.

But still, there was a weird tremble in her thighs, a fluttering in her chest, and a shortness of breath that made her racing brain conscious whenever she caught a glimpse of the familiar mess of black curls around some corner or picked up a fragment of hoarse laughter.

"You're loosing, Holloway!" echoed from the edges of each corridor.

She heard herself laugh, distantly. She couldn't quite explain it, this feeling in her stomach as she felt the fresh air fluttering under her loose blouse. Her laced up shoes clicked quickly on the stone floor, lagged behind her loud puffs of breath.

"Shit!"

Abrupt stop. The soles of Tuesday's shoes, stupid Oxford-chic dress code things, slid across the floor uncontrollably, not quite but almost making her loose her balance (the second time this day) as she turned another corner and ran into a group of very familiar students.

Her chest crashed against someone's forearm with a force she hadn't believed she held in her body. The pain robbed her breath for just long enough to hinder her from realizing that it was Julien's arm that was still dangerously close to her chest.

"Christ…easy…" Julien blurt out, equally overwhelmed by the sudden collision. He didn't make an effort to move his arm; just smiled and stood there with his body against Tuesday, who still seemed to try to regain her ability to breathe. Only when she looked past his shoulder at Finn, who leaned on the wall behind Julien, hands in his pockets without intent of moving with a bright smirk on his face and an eyebrow raised at the situation, Tuesday realized just the amount of physical contact she shared with Julien. She jumped a few steps back. It was only then that she noticed three girls standing next to him.

"…Tuesday, you…here…" Poppy shifted from one side of Julien's back to the other and smiled at Tuesday over his shoulder, which she could barely overlook. Next to her stood a girl with sleek raven hair and, even weirder, _Ginger_.

It was an unnatural picture. This completely random group of people, hiding behind a corner in most secretive manner. None of them seemed to belong; they were all from different worlds (and more importantly from different houses) that were too opposite to ever collide. It was hardly imaginable that they were friends. Ginger sank back against the wall next to Finn, whispering something too quiet for Tuesday to understand.

"And in such a hurry…" Julien tilted his head to the side and one of his dirty blonde strands loosened from the gelled chaos on his head. He shot Finn a quick devastating stare that the young witch didn't quite understand. "…you must be very into… _potions_."

It became weirdly silent.

"Yeah sure…I guess" Tuesday stuttered, not quite knowing why she suddenly had the urge to turn around and run away. Being intimidated was a new feeling to her. Instead of watching where she was walking as she moved backwards, the young witch bumped into someone.

"Sorry," she said, more a reflex than an actual apology, and then looked up.

"It's alright," the raven haired-girl replied; a ghost of what once could've been a smile on her lips. "How weird, normally everybody hates potions…"

There was a certain undertone in her voice that made the young witch shiver. The girl was the captain of Ravenclaw's Quidditch team, so Tuesday recalled. The dark lines she'd drawn around her eyes made them huge as the moon and dark as soil. And the way she stared at the young witch made her toes freeze.

"Except for me of course." Ginger jumped in, with a voice that was soft enough to make Tuesday believe that her sister was actually trying to help her. Even if only for a second, because the next Ginger narrowed her eyes to tiny piercing slits. She had noticed the looks flying back and forth between her sister and Finn. "It's my special skill kinda thing, you know. Maybe it's in the family… but don't get your hopes up, you have no chance, I've been breaking records since second year…"

"…wasn't gonna…" The ringing of the bell came in handy to draw the attention away from the pale witch, who had an inappropriately sharp retort on the tip of her tongue. This whole situation was weird, she felt as if she had stepped into a grotesque movie scene; the kind where accomplices to a murder secretly discussed their next move in a dark alley.

Poppy, visibly uncomfortable with the whole tenseness in the air, picked the hem of her shirt and tried her very best to avoid everyone's stares. Her pale cheeks were turning bright pink and she choked on the piece of gum she had been chewing loudly all along.

"Why don't you come sit with us, hugh?" she smiled nervously, gasping for air, before turning to Finn. "Right, she can sit with us?"

The silent desperate look in her mirror-glass eyes surprised Tuesday. Since when did he decide who she sat with? What for Christ's sake was going on here? The white-haired witch faced Finn, still silent with hands in his pockets, his lips curled into a cruel smile.

"Sorry…" He pressed himself off the wall and made a few steps towards the new arrival. If she hadn't been so mad her heart would've fluttered uncontrollably in her chest as he stopped only centimetres away from her.

"Our table's full unfortunately…" he shrugged with eyes, piercing icy dark orbs, saying the opposite. He smelled like peppermint and liquorice. "…and that cigarette's mine."

The young witch was too numb to say anything, just stunned and overwhelmed by this unreal amount of arrogance and complacency. She smashed the cigarette box against his chest.

"Thank you…" Finn placed the cigarette naturally between his crooked lips and made his way to the classroom, indicating the others to follow him as he entered. And they did. Poppy hesitated for a moment, stood in the doorframe and shrugged with no proper excuse passing her lips. It hit Tuesday like a slap in the face when she finally turned around and left, too.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder down there than up in the main castle and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Tuesday seated herself next to Jenny, to her obvious discomfort. She hadn't forgiven Tuesday for just bailing on her at breakfast this morning. But the pale witch wasn't able to concentrate on anything her roommate was saying right now. Her eyes were pinned to the table across, those five students sitting next to each other in their bizarrely intimate way.

"Tuesday?... Tuesday! Are you even listening to me?" Jenny gave her a rather harsh hit in the side that made the pale-haired witch's ribcage chatter.

"…sorry I just…" she massaged her forehead, still not for a second loosing sight of what was happening on the other side of the room. The potions materials had already been distributed and the five immediately almost mechanically started to work with a speed that wasn't human. It was as if they had roles, everyone silently working together as clockwork. Finn looked up. The cigarette he'd lit up beneath the cauldron was sitting triumphantly between his fingers.

"Oooooooh… It's ok, we've all gone through this. He's a heart-throb…." Jenny concluded, giggling as Finn smirked at her before turning to Tuesday and making a movement as if to say cheers with the cigarette. Son of a…

"What? No, I mean…" Tuesday's chair squeaked as she inched away from Jenny a tad, who had moved uncomfortably close to the new arrival. "That's not it. I'm just wondering what's up with the constellation there? They don't look like they have a lot in common… anything in common really…"

Jenny looked confused for a second.

"Oh, you mean the five of them?" she pointed at the table. "Yeah, it's totally weird, right? They didn't used to even like each other… Actually if I think about it no one before ever had stuff going on with kids from other houses. But last year they kinda started to hang. I think it's a school thing or something. They're really competitive. And now they barely ever even part…"

The new arrival scratched her shoulder through her thick cardigan. The fabric scratched back.

"So it's a school thing?" she asked doubtingly.

"Well everyone knows Ginger and Finn have been hooking up ever since he got back to Hogwarts. But if you ask me, I have no idea what else is going on between all of them but there definitely is something… I've heard some rumours…"

Tuesday straightened herself on her chair. "What rumours?"

"About duel's… or games if you will so. Between these sort of _teams_ of students. They choose the best students of their classes. For practice, I've been told. I don't know. Seems unlikely though, teachers would've noticed…right?" Jenny folded her hand in her lap.

Poppy and Ginger? In a duelling-team? Barely possible, Tuesday thought. There had to be something else. But the way all of them worked hand in hand with the speed of light made her think twice. Could this be true? And if, why the hell did Poppy turn on her? Did they really think they were actually _better_ than the rest of the school?

If that was the case then they'd better brace themselves, cause this year she'd show them just what the Beauxbatons girls were capable of.


	5. Chapter 4

**Stress to impress**

You learned a lot studying the nights through at the not at all 24-hour-open library at Hogwarts, Tuesday thought as she once again sat in a dark corner sheltered by the shade of two bordering bookshelves.

Not only had the new arrival filled up her once so carefree mind with the heavy knowledge of every detectable book in the accessible section of the library night after night after night, she had also been able to finally get an insight on things at her new school.

She had learned, for example, that it took a twenty-person team consisting of a bunch of houseelfs and dwarf-like creatures three hours to clean the floors so that the mid-morning influx of professors and staff could see their silhouettes instead of somebody else's footprints while floating between the shelves, casting shadows over their misbehaving students like thunderheads ready to explode. She had learned that stacking heavy books back on top of the racks could be a much-needed workout or even a meditation. Night-time felt soothing. It had an altogether different etiquette than the day.

Tuesday was aware that she was not a very sociable person, so it was by choice that she had started to disappear after midnight alone over the past weeks, leaving a sometimes quite puzzled Jenny behind. And to be quite honest, she much rather spent her time surrounded by the smell of paper and ink than endure the indivisible night, unified by insomnia.

And how else would she have overheard those one or two or three students that also sneaked around the school at night as they talked about **mysterious clans** and some sort of **cruel game** being played at Hogwarts for the bad of everyone.

"You won't believe what I just heard…" Tuesday burst back into her room after she had sucked up all the possible knowledge she could gather like a sponge up into the early hours of morning.

"Yes, morning to you, too. Sorry I woke you up Jenny…" Jenny sat up in her bed with hair standing in every possible direction.

"Uh-hugh, now shush." Tuesday kicked off her shoes and threw herself onto Jenny's bed. "Last night I heard these Hufflepuff girls talking about something called the "Ivory clan" and I bet that's another one of those _teams_ , you know, the ones that are currently founded all over school. Other than the name suggests I don't think it's a particularly racist thing… Might have been Daphne's idea, you know that biology nerd, since she and all her friends have that short ivory coloured haircut and are constantly hanging around each other… but then again that would be very literal, but they don't seem too smart either so…"

"You're crazy, you know that right? Don't you ever consider that they might just be a naïve bunch of girls having a laugh together? You've been obsessing about this idea that there's something bigger going on and frankly, you're starting to worry me! When I told you about those duelling-teams I didn't think you would go all nuts about it!" Jenny walked around the room hectically, chasing Tuesday who was gathering her stuff for class. The withe-haired witch ignored her, lighting herself a cigarette as always and tying to huge the storm that was her hair into a messy high knot.

"No listen to me, you're crazy! You even look crazy with those dark circles and bony shoulders. Just… sneaking out every night without sleep, all paranoid about some bizarre idea…You're starting to scare me… This really can't be healthy!" Jenny squeaked in her piercingly high voice.

"Oh and stuffing yourself with chocolate every night and obsessing over boys is?" Tuesday spat and turned around to find Jenny looking at her with wide eyes, about to burst into tears, kicking a box of truffles under her bed. "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. You look great, you know that…"

"I really don't get what's gotten into you!" Jenny said calmly, hardly convinced by Tuesday's apology. The white haired witch knew that she had been quite a bitch the past weeks and she knew where her anger and aggressiveness stirred from. So did Jenny.

"If you want to impress Finn, all you need to do is wear a shorter skirt! If possible at all…" Jenny whispered that last bit.

"I don't want to impress him! Christ, you really don't get it, do you? There is something huge going on here and I don't think it's a good thing. And I'm not planning on sitting around doing nothing about it…"

"And what is that huge thing exactly? Students forming little alliances, teams, fighting against each other in some sort of contest or game or battle? Huge fucking deal! It's not the end of the world! You'd be the last person I thought taking this so seriously. Trust me, the teachers will do something about it as soon as they find out…" Jenny said as she sprayed herself with perfume. The cold clean smell of synthetic rose petals blended into a headache-causing odor with the furniture polish.

"Yeah, that's the thing exactly! They should have noticed it long ago, I don't get why they're not doing anything… I swear there's more to this than meets the eye…" Tuesday slipped into her dresscode-shoes that she had in protest sprinkled with red paint to make them look like they were stained in blood. She smirked.

"And what does this have to do with you spending each and every night in the library? And what has Finn got to do with all of this?" Jenny asked without understanding. She shook her full head of chin-length brown curls like she always did.

"He, my sister, Poppy, Julien and that Ravenclaw girl Ruth seem to have such an alliance, don't you think? I mean, why else would they hang around? They used to hate each other." Tuesday stained her lips the same colour as the sprinkles on her shoes with some red lipstick "So, I thought, how get a better insight on things than to be part of such an alliance…"

"You've got to be kidding me? Why do you think they would let _you_ be part of their club? Besides the obvious fact that Finn is an asshole and doesn't show much interest in you, you and your sister don't seem to get along too well… This should be double difficult for you." Jenny laughed and searched her closet for her shirt.

"That's where all the studying comes in. Other than all of the other teams, their one doesn't seem to be bound to a specific house or group of friends, don't you think? They choose their members solely on their qualities. The only thing everyone in that group has in common is intelligence and some sort of specific skill at something…"

"And you think you have what it takes to get into their team and wow them?" Jenny sarcastically raised her eyebrows at the witch while buttoning up her shirt that was still showing way too much cleavage.

"Watch me…" the new-arrival smiled, throwing the bud of her half-finished cigarette at Jenny's feet before storming out the room.

Even though her fragile body was in torment from the constant exhaustion over the past weeks, Tuesday's mind seemed to glow brighter and brighter every second as if new power and strength had rose in her. This was the result of the endless amount of time she had spent behind the shelves. And now, words came out more fluently. Not that they hadn't before, the young witch had always been very intelligent, but now they were able to make people speechless from now to then.

History, Astronomy and Herbology flew by with Tuesday leaving behind puzzled teachers and students alike. Jenny, sitting not at all as placidly as she used to on the opposite side of the room, slipped down in her chair more and more with every word that ever so elegantly slipped from her roomate's tongue. In-between those death glares her roommate shot her (she was still mad about the chocolate thing), Tuesday could sometimes see a blink of surprise and astonishment in her face. To her utter satisfaction, of course.

But then in Arithmancy, no matter how hard she tried not to, the new-arrival had to let her eyes wander to the back of the class from now to then, where Finn and her sister were sitting next to each other, thighs touching. To her surprise this made her loose her train of thought a couple of times in a row. And no matter how much she concentrated, how often she knew the right answer to the questions, it felt like it was never enough.

When the bell finally rang, Tuesday made her way outside alone. She watched her feet as she walked down the hallways, stepping over the cracks in the splintering ancient stones. The way the pavement was worn-out and shiny at spots made it look like sweat. Her first idea had been to go to the rooftop again, to accidentally bump into one of the five, but now she somehow didn't feel like that anymore at all. She'd much rather spend the break outside on the school yards grass, smoking, making plans how she should stab all these kids with their test tubes later in Potions today.

"I heard you were making the rest of us look bad in Arithmancy today." Julien was sitting against the school walls outside the colonnade when the pale witch had found her way out of the labyrinth that was her school. As he stood up she noticed that there was lipstick on the collar of his shirt and his hair seemed damp and sweaty rather than greased back as usual.

"Yeah sure..." Tuesday tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms. "And where were _you_ in Arithmancy today?" She smirked and gestured to Julien's collar.

"Well I, eh, you know..."

"I'll keep my mouth shut if you give me a cigarette..." Tuesday opened her hand demandingly.

"And what makes you think I would care if you told anyone?"

"No, no I don't think you would care if I told anyone... But you sure would care if I told Poppy so she can make fun of you for the next billion years..." the pale-skinned said and when Julien raised his eyebrow added: "Come on, mine were confiscated by my dumb twat of a roommate…"

Julien bit his lip to hold back a giggle and failed.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

He still struggled to hold back his laugh, gesturing behind the colonnade with his chin where a girl was hiding behind a pillar.

"You know what, screw you!" Jenny hissed, holding together the top button of her blouse as she stepped out of the shade. She spat at the new-arrival's feet before storming off.

"As if this day could get any worse!" Tuesday covered her face with her hands. She'd have to apologize to Jenny for the next hundred years. " _Dumb twat of a roommate"_ , truly not Tuesday's finest hour.

"Now you can have a cigarette if you want. I think you might need it…" Julien still couldn't stop laughing. He handed the witch the box and buttoned his shirt again. "Now, I know what you're thinking. But well, that blouse gets me every time… What can I say, girl sure knows how to catch my attention." he smirked.

"You're such a dick!" the white haired leaned her forehead against the wall. "She won't ever let me forget this happened, you realize that don't you?"

Tuesday could only think of all the drama Jenny would cause back at their room. Psychotically trashing her stuff might be the least horrible of the things her roommate was capable of doing. The new arrival clenched her knees to hide her red face as she sat down next to Julien on the grass.

"Now who do we have here?" The shade cast to Tuesday's feet was Ginger's. "I didn't know you two were a _thing_."

"We're not." Tuesday replied a tad too fast. Looking up she saw her sister next to Finn, Poppy and Ruth. Finn smirked with his hands in his pockets as always, perfect collarbones exposed in his dark-green Slytherin sweater.

"I was just asking her if she could help me with my Arithmancy homework since she really aced the pop quiz today and…" Julien's face turned unexpectedly red. The way the other four's gazes wandered from Julien's lipstick-stained collar to the pale witch's guiltily looking red lips didn't help the case either.

"Ok, well maybe you could _help me with my homework_ then, too?" Finn laughed to Ginger's obvious discomfort and cocked his head to the side.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself." the white-haired got onto her feet again, suddenly very aware of her hair being tousled in a way that could easily be misinterpreted.

"Watch it!" Finn said calmly with a plastic smile and a sharp jawline.

"Excuse me?" The words came out choppy, like they were supposed to.

"Ok now listen…" There was a tiny wrinkle on Finn's forehead in-between his dark eyebrows. "…watching you making a fool out of yourself by pointlessly recounting the stuff you read in your stupid books was really entertaining, believe me." He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the new-arrival's face. "And sure, the whole school's been talking about you. But don't get the false impression that you're actually talented. It takes more than learning the entire library's content by heart to be a true wizard…"

There were bite-marks on Tuesday's tongue from the constant pressure she put on her jaw to prevent herself from jumping in his face.

"But if you care for a good old match to prove me wrong, bring it on." Finn flinged his arm around the young witch's shoulder unexpectedly as he guided her to the Dark Arts classroom, sending a weird shiver down her spine.

"Show me what you got!"


End file.
